REACTION TO TRUMP'S COMMENTS. Republican 1st District U.S. House candidate Eddie Edwards considers himself a supporter of President Donald Trump, but the Dover conservative said Wednesday that he was less than fully satisfied with Trump’s comments about the weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“Speaking as a conservative and as an American, you always want people to come out strongly against a terrorist organization,” Edwards said in an interview. “Surely, I would have liked to have seen the president come out stronger” in condemnation of the Ku Klux Klan and other groups that were involved in the Saturday protest.

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Edwards spoke to New Hampshire Primary Source a day after Trump doubled down on his weekend claim that “many sides” were to blame for the riot.

Democrats were quick to pounce after the president’s raucous news conference at Trump Tower, calling on Gov. Chris Sununu and other local GOP leaders to condemn Trump’s remarks, especially his claim that there were “very fine people” on both sides.

“There are no ‘very fine’ neo-Nazis," said U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter. “I never thought we would hear such disgusting and outrageous comments from a president of the United States -- comments that were immediately praised by David Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan.”

She called the comments “a disgrace to our nation.”

During the weekend, Sununu called the Charlottesville violence “absolutely terrible. There’s no place for this white supremacy, this Nazi stuff.”

“It’s important that everybody comes out, talks about it for what it is, the disgusting nature for what it is, pushes back and makes sure that people understand that this is a country, whether you’re in Virginia or New Hampshire or any state in this country,” Sununu told WMUR. “This is a country of acceptance, of working together, of cooperation.”

“The president’s comments yesterday were deeply disappointing,” the governor said. “There is no moral equivalence between those who espouse racism and hatred and those who stand up against it.”

Edwards, meanwhile, told us, “When you look at the white nationalists and the Klan and any other type of group that is set up to focus on race and is classified as a terrorist organization, no one would support organizations like that, and the vast majority of Americans are opposed to groups like that.”

“But I think we have to start looking for solutions. People like David Duke are trying to take advantage of the situation by clinging to a statement and putting out there a statement that makes it look like the president is supportive of him.”

Edwards said that as someone who “grew up knowing discrimination and seeing Confederate flags, I can say that our country has advanced a great deal. It is time to start having conversations that are aimed at coming up with solutions. But a lot of people make their livelihoods by keeping racial conflict alive. Many don’t want to see us move forward.

“We’re facing long-range missiles from North Korea, ISIS, a health care crisis, and we are spending this time parsing words. No serious person is willing to defend white nationalists and the Klan, and it is equally important that we start finding solutions as a nation.”

The other announced Republican candidate for the 1st District House seat, state Sen. Andy Sanborn, could not be reached for an interview Wednesday, but said in a statement:

"As the son of a Jewish mother whose family came from Europe during World War II, I know fully of the horrors committed by Nazi's and white supremacists and there is no place in America for them or their beliefs. Likewise, this rise in violence across our lands over political values does not represent how our democracy should work and it is time to restore our ability to debate respectfully and peacefully."

Meanwhile, former New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman Jack Kimball, a current leader in the Rochester 9/12 Project, which hosted Sununu earlier this week, also commented on the violence and on Trump’s response in an interview this week.

Kimball charged that the counter-protest by members of the far-left Antifa group and by Black Lives Matter, was “orchestrated.”

“The white supremacy groups were the ones who filed for the permit, and it was all going along well until the arrival of Antifa,” Kimball said.

He said he is “convinced” that James Fields, who is charged with second degree murder for allegedly ramming his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer, “was going very slowly until people from Black Lives Matter took a bat to the back of his car. Then, he stepped on the gas.”

“I’m convinced he was scared as crap and thought he’d get the crap beat out of him,” Kimball said.

Kimball said Trump’s weekend statement “was fine as far as I’m concerned. What we are seeing now in the national media is an effort to bring him down. Don’t forget the roots of the KKK as well as Antifa and Black Lives Matter all emanate from the Democrats.”

Kimball said that when Trump temporarily changed his narrative on Monday by using a prepared statement to specifically condemn neo-Nazis, the KKK and white nationalists, he was “pressured into it, and these are some of the things that I wish he wouldn’t do.

“He’s going to get hammered no matter what. He’s not going to get those (liberal) people to agree with him no matter what.”